Iraqi forces attack Camp Ashraf

Conferences

21 November 2012

I recently read a book, which I really bring to your attention, and I was thinking about it as I listened to many of the speakers. It’s a fantastic book – it is called: “In the Garden of the Beast.” And the author is an individual named Larson. And this is a true account of the US ambassador to Germany between 1934 and 1938, an appointment by President Roosevelt. Ambassador Dodd refused to go to all of the rallies that Adolf Hitler was organizing. He said “I will not lend dignity to them,” and for this he was repeatedly chastised by the state department because the role of the ambassador was to be nice to the host country. Finally in 1938, the state department succeeded in removing him as ambassador – replaced with a career ambassador whose first move in 1938 was to attend one of Hitler’s Nuremburg rallies.

Now I say this because if we look at what we accomplished it all makes a lot of sense if we put it within this paradigm of human dignity versus political expediency. So let me just sum up by saying briefly five points about what was in fact accomplished and five points about where we need to go.

The most single accomplishment is a result of delisting. The accomplishment that Patrick Kennedy spoke so eloquently about is that by having been delisted, you have been humanized. Again, and I say that unequivocally, because there is no greater dehumanization in the American lexicon today than calling someone a terrorist or an organization a foreign terrorist organization. And I say this as a former department justice official and one has dedicated his own professional life to dealing with terrorism – I know the consequences of being labeled a terrorist. They are sever because when the terrorist label applies, it means that someone has done a terribly odious deed and that there is sufficient information and evidence to support it. While that odious reference has now been deleted and again as Patrick Kennedy pointed out, the use of that label has enabled Iraq to believe that it has license because these are not normal human beings – they are sub-humans – they are terrorists – they have no right to legal obligations to them under international law. They can shoot at them at will. And if a government allows such individuals and organizations to be labeled without warrant as terrorist organizations, then are the words of US law are a facilitation of the consequences that occurred. So the most important thing is you have been dehumanized, and now you have been humanized again. Now with humanization comes the following:

1) You are now entitled to raise as much money as you want because money/finances are the oxygen of any organization and before that anyone giving a nickel faces as much as 15 years in jail

2) You are entitled as a matter of war to have immediate resettlement as refugees. This is an entitlement under international law. It is also an entitlement to be resettled in foreign countries

3) Fourth, you are entitled to travel to the United States and elsewhere to raise the public consciousness

4) And finally, you are now in a position where you can shape, as legitimate actors, the future of Iran. And as Madam Rajavi pointed out, the first tangible consequence of the delisting in Iran is quote “the revitalization of the moral of our youth.”

Now those were the consequence of delisting. What does the future hold in store?

The first is, I believe that you must come to the understanding that the fight for delisting was part, and continues to be part, of a much larger struggle. The state department is dedicated, and I say this with ultimate respect because I served in the state department for so many years, but the state department’s priority is diplomacy. Diplomacy is normal smooth relations. You know where respect for law comes in? Now I’m not saying this, the attorneys for the state department basically said this in our hearing before the US Court of Appeals at the very bottom. So what happened in the court of appeals was this: the state department was told that it is time for a readjustment. The most drastic and dramatic remedy that exists in the US constitution is called a writ of Mandamus. Why? Because we have separation of powers. Here, in a writ of Mandamus, the judicial branch, the judiciary, tells the executive branch “you are falling down on your duty, you are commanded to do this” and that’s what happened because the state department was told that “you must by October 1st delist, regardless of the busy schedule of the secretary or anything else, or else we will delist for you.” Now I say this with some pride because I was one of the first proponents of the idea of using the writ of Mandamus, and I say this because I had personal experience with it, but I just want to take a minute to illustrate a case that I had worked on because it tells us what the stakes are.

After the first operation in the Gulf, there was an American, a career military officer, who had been appointed as the director of the US training mission in Saudi Arabia. He came home one night and saw that his wife had been strangled. She had been murdered. The base commander said “well you know, you better go with them” and he said “well who is them” and he said “the Saudi police.” Then he said “why the Saudi police, why not if you think I murdered my wife, why don’t you try me?” he said “you don’t understand, we have instructions from the state department that we cannot offend Saudi Arabia – you go with them.” So he went with them. They put him in a cell for 12 hours with no food, very little water. They said “sign this confession and you can go.” He said “sign this confession? What does it say? It’s in Arabic.” “Well we’ll translate it – it says that you strangled your wife.” He says “I refuse to sign it.” He went back to the base for an hour. He told the base commander “what are you doing? Why are you depriving me of American justice so I can respond?” He said “we have instructions from the state department not to offend the Saudis.” What I did the next day is I went to the office of the secretary of defense and I said “here is a writ of mandamus that will be filed tomorrow compelling you to do your duty to stand up for the rights of an American citizen regardless of political expediency. And essentially, that is what was at stake in this case. What was at stake was whether or not the political expediency and the vain hope of improving relations with Iran should totally trump and extinguish respect for the rule of law, and you succeeded. So let me make two final points.

Your success is not only a success for the PMOI and MEK. It is a success for civil liberties. It is a success of the rule of law for all Americans. And like all movements, all movements only succeed if they make winning coalitions, and you should make a winning coalition now that you can travel freely to the United States, with all organization that support civil liberties and human rights because your victory was a victory for human rights. Now, your human rights was a victory for something else in the making because with an opportunity to travel to the United States, to congress, to think tanks, to meet with prominent individuals, you can make your case directly, and that is the case that has to be made because the only justification that the state department’s position really has – they will never say it’s political expedience – the state department will say “yes the rule of law is important, but we are not dealing with issues of diplomacy only, but we are dealing with issues of peace – world peace.” And you have to explain as you said Madam Rajavi earlier, that the future of world peace lies in being able to provide for an important role for regime change and allowance for a constructive role by the PMOI/MEK in that. So with this, the future is yours. And now, I wish you all the very best good luck.